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60th Congress, | SENATE. j Document 

2d Session. j 1 No. 593. 



ADDRESS OF HON. REED SMOOT. 



Mr. Sutherland presented the following 
&~ 

ADDRESS OF SENATORJREED SMOOT, CHAIRMAN SECTION OF 
FORESTS, BEFORE THE GOVERNORS, STATE AND NATIONAL 
CONSERVATION COMMISSIONS, WASHINGTON, D. C, DECEMBER 
10, 1908. 



December 16, 1908. — Ordered to be printed. 



The Chairman. I have now the very great pleasure of presenting 
to you Senator Smoot, of Utah, chairman of the section of forests, 
who will present that part of the commission's report to you for your 
consideration. 

Senator Smoot. Mr. Chairman, governors, and members of the 
state and national conservation commissions, I take it that we are 
here this morning for the purpose of considering seriously the vital 
questions affecting the conservation and the proper utilization of the 
forests of our country. It is a subject greater than any man, greater 
than any State; it is as great as the nation itself. Every man, 
woman, and child of to-day, and every one yet to be born, is inter- 
ested in this great question. You, no doubt, have noticed that in all 
the previous discussions of this conference the question of the con- 
servation and the use of the forests has played an important part. In 
my remarks I do not intend to call special attention to any of the 
great resources of any particular State, because there is not a single 
governor here, or state representative, who could not sing the praises 
of his own State and speak of the wonders of its natural resources. I 
wish to present to you, and emphasize, if possible, some of the points 
that have been made in the report of the National Conservation Com- 
mission, which report I hope will be approved by this conference and 
then submitted to the President of the United States. 

God has blessed this beautiful land of liberty most lavishly and 
richly; no country on earth has been given so many natural resources, 
and it seems to me that in the past we have been lax indeed in trying 
to preserve them, not only for ourselves, but for future posterity. 

Gentlemen, yesterday you heard the report of the committee, 
wherein it was stated that an inventory of our forest resources had 
just been completed, which is the best we have ever possessed. This 
inventory is the result of the combined and vigorous effort of all state 
and federal agencies concerned. 

The facts which flow from this great accumulation of knowledge 
regarding our forests will soon be made common knowledge, as they 



$--35 H £> 






ADDRESS OF HON. REED SMOOT. 



ought to be. From these facts three great conclusions spring; the 
first, that the forest problem before the individual, the State, and the 
nation is grave and urgent ; the second, that we can solve this problem 
if we act unitedly, vigorously, and at once; the third, that if we fail to 
act, the possibility of a satisfactory solution will be rendered doubtful 
or even wholly removed. The time is past for us to be content to 
dabble with the vital internal question which the right handling of our 
forests presents. It may well be our pride that no nation has a more 
wholesome and enthusiastic public sentiment for the right use of the 
forests than our own; but it may well be our shame that no nation 
takes poorer care of its private forests than our own country. 

This is not the time for harsh criticism of the agencies which have 
brought about the deplorable condition of our forests. But above 
all it is the time for prompt, effective, and united effort to remedy 
this condition. The time has long passed when the only need for the 
conservation of our forests was in order that we might fulfill our 
duty to those who come after us. The time is already here when 
for our immediate welfare the conservation of all forests in private, 
as w T ell as in public, hands is absolutely essential. Forestry no 
longer means its appeal to the American people solely through 
their sense of public duty. Its appeal now rests upon a firm founda- 
tion, not only of public duty, but of urgent industrial and commer- 
cial necessity. 

I wish at this time to call your attention to some of the special 
items of that report again, so that you may each be impressed with 
the importance of this particular fact. 

Consider the situation ! This nation began with half its area under 
forest. To-day barely one-fourth of our country is covered by forest 
growth. Only one-fifth of the standing timber which remains is in 
public ownership, and therefore belongs to the people. Four-fifths 
of what remains is in private hands. Year by year we take more and 
more wood from our forests, and year by year, by careless cutting and 
by fire, we lower their capacity to produce again. The yearly pro- 
duction of our forests by growth is 7,000,000,000 cubic feet, a volume 
of timber so great that the mind can scarce comprehend it; but a 
volume of timber over three times as large is taken from our forests 
each year. Nor is this the complete indictment against us as a 
nation for our misuse of the forest. We invite by overtaxation the 
destructive handling of forest lands. We should plant, to protect 
farms from wind and to make stripped or treeless lands productive, 
an area larger than Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia com- 
bined. But, so far, lands successfully planted to trees make a total 
area smaller than Rhode Island. 

It seems to me one of the most destructive elements of our forests 
tjomes from forest fires, and if the governors can in any way educate 
the individual who owns the forest upon this point of view, this meet- 
ing will not have failed. I was visiting the Appalachian country a 
short time ago and had the pleasure of inspecting the great Biltmore 
estate. One of the party asked Dr. C. A. Schanck, the forester in 
charge, if he had $5,000,000, the interest on which was to be used 
by him for the preservation of forests, what he would do with it. 
His answer was, without hesitation, "I would use every dollar of it 
for a fire patrol." Asked again, if he had the interest on $20,000,000 



1 9 1908 
0. oi 0. 



ADDRESS OF HON. REED SMOOT. 6 

what he would do with that, he replied, "I would increase my fire 
patrol just four times." 

Since 1870 forest fires have each year destroyed an average of 50 
lives and $50,000,000 worth of timber. Not less than 50,000,000 acres 
of forest is burned over yearly. 

One-fourth of the standing timber is left, or otherwise lost in logging. 
The boxing of the longleaf pine for turpentine has destroyed one- 
fifth of the forests worked. The loss in the mill is from one-third 
to two-thirds of the timber sawed; the loss in the mill product, 
through seasoning and fitting for use, is from one-seventh to one- 
fourth. The damage done by destructive forest insects is enormous 
and largely preventable. Only 320 feet of lumber are used to each 
1,000 feet which stood in the forest. 

Nor is the indictment yet complete. By the needless destruction 
of our forests we impair the value of our streams for navigation, irri- 
gation, water supply, and power. We spend millions of dollars in 
river and harbor improvements to repair damage which, at the cost 
of mere thrift and foresight, could have been nearly all avoided. We 
deal with the effects and ignore the cause. We discuss the exact 
scientific relation between the forest and the stream, when each year 
the total quantity of silt carried by our rivers as the result of forest 
denudation and poor soil management would cover one foot deep a 
surface of more than 900 square miles. In our blindness we have 
failed to take advantage of the lessons which the history of other 
nations contains. Most other countries have learned through bitter 
experience that forests which are not conserved will be used up, and 
they are taking care of what they have. We are among the last to 
learn it. 

So much for the indictment. Every clause in it is absolutely true. 
What would you think of the business capacity and the foresight of 
an individual against whom such an indictment might justly be read? 
So much for where we stand. Now let us consider what must be 
done, and where we might stand if it were done. 

These are the things which we must do. They involve no intricate 
machinery of law or practice. They are simply incontrovertible 
conclusions based upon the conditions which now exist and which 
must be remedied: First in importance is the conserving of forests 
in private lands. Private forest owners, which means 3,000,000 
men, and individual forest users, which means everyone, must prac- 
tice reasonable economy in the woods, in logging, in milling, and in 
the use of timber. Above all, they must protect their forests from 
fire. This they can do at an annual cost equal to one-fifth of the 
damage forest fires do each year, not counting injury to young growth. 
And it is this young growth which, if preserved, would grow a con- 
stant supply of timber for those who come after us. I do not ask 
of the private owner and user that he apply any economy which is 
not entirely practicable and which does not mean present as well 
as permanent profit. I ask only that he protect his forest from 
fire, that he log it conservatively, and that he plant uplands suited 
only to forest which have been so denuded of trees that they now 
fail even to pay the taxes levied upon them. To justify private 
owners in applying those measures, two main conditions are neces- 
sary, both of which exist to-day: The one, a knowledge of the central 
fact that these measures are needed and that they will pay; the other, 



4 ADDRESS OF HON. EEED SMOOT. 

the availability of knowledge as to how these measures may best 
be applied. If anything I could say to the governors to-day that 
seems more important than another, it would be to return home to 
your States and educate the people. 

One of the urgent tasks before the States is the immediate passage 
of tax laws which will enable the private owner to protect and keep 
productive under forest those lands suitable only for forest growth. 
In our discussion in committee meeting there was a question raised 
by a member present as to this recommendation, claiming that it 
would encourage great monopolies in securing larger holdings of 
timber, if an annual tax was not required on the timber itself. I have 
studied this question in foreign lands, particularly in Germany and 
Switzerland, and I find that the result has been exactly the opposite. 
It does seem to me that the great monopolies that control vast 
tracts of our timber land can much better afford to pay an annual 
tax on their timber than can the individual man, with scanty means 
at his command, who believes in reforestation and upon whom such a 
tax would be a burden so great that it would be almost impossible 
for him to carry it. I believe with all my soul in the tax laws as 
recommended in our report. It is a shortsighted policy which 
invites, through excessive taxation, the destruction of the only crop 
which steep mountain lands will produce profitably. Taxes on forest 
land should be levied on the crop when cut, not on the basis of a 
general property tax — that unsound method of taxation long aban- 
doned by every other great nation. 

Another urgent task before every great forest State is not only 
the passage of adequate lire laws, but their actual enforcement. 
More is needed to protect the forest from fire than a law upon the 
statute books. It requires the definite commitment of all the States 
to their inherent responsibility for the protection of the forests 
within their boundaries from fire, and that entails, and absolutely 
entails, the employment of a trained force whose first duty is fire 
patrol. A few days ago I heard a very prominent gentlemen from 
West Virginia testify before the National Conservation Commission 
that the forest fires of West Virginia alone this year have cost that 
State in the loss of timber $5,000,000. Afire patrol that would cost 
the State of West Virginia $100,000 would be ample to protect that 
State against forest fires. Think of it, gentlemen, the loss in this 
one year in the State of West Virginia was sufficient to patrol that 
State for its protection against forest fires for fifty long years. 

The nation, through the Federal Government, confronts the urgent 
duty of conserving all, not merely a part, of the public forest lands 
by use. Until this standing timber is adequately protected and 
conservatively used, not only as at present on national forests, but on 
all other public forest lands as well, its very existence is imperiled. 
Grave injury has already been done. It would be a national disgrace 
should it continue. 

I have recently visited that great and beautiful forest region which 
lies within the southern Appalachian Mountains, and I have this to 
say regarding the proposed purchase of a small portion of it by the 
Federal Government for the permanent use of the whole people. I 
believe as firmly as I believe that I am standing here on this platform 
that unless adequate action is taken, and taken soon, the destruction 
now going rapidly on in the Appalachian Mountains will either 



ADDRESS OF HON. REED SMOOT. 5 

become^irretrievable or, retrievable only at an expense so vast[in time 
and money that it would stagger this nation. I do not believe that 
it is necessary or advisable for the Federal Government to acquire 
all mountain forests in this region, nor half of them, nor a fourth of 
them. The purchase of one-twentieth of these mountain forest 
lands, their protection from fire, and their conservation by use would 
solve, and solve satisfactorily, this grave and urgent problem. But 
this entails, as every other effective national measure for the preser- 
vation of the forest entails, for its success the cooperation of the State 
concerned, through lire protection, and of the private forest owners 
concerned, through better handling of forest lands in private owner- 
ship. 

^These are the incontrovertible conclusions which flow from the 
knowledge of how we stand along main lines with relation to the 
forest. Unless we do these things our forests will inevitably fail, 
and the failure of our forests means the erosion of soil upon the 
mountains and a falling off in the usefulness of our streams. Action 
upon each of these conclusions requires no vast expenditures, no 
upheaval in present economic conditions, but merely the exercise 
of reasonable foresight and thrift by individual forest owners and 
users, by all the States, and by the nation. No one of these great 
agencies can alone solve our forest problem. They must work 
together, unitedly, vigorously, adequately, and at once. If they act, 
together and now, we need not worry greatly about our future tim- 
ber supply. If they fail to act, it will mean inevitable and grave 
timber scarcity in the near future, and actual timber famine for 
those who come after us. 

We can no more disregard in our use of the forest than in our use 
of the mine, of the stream, and of the farm the fundamental truth 
that want follows close upon the heels of waste. But we should be 
thankful as individual forest owners and forest users, thankful as 
individual States, and thankful as a federation of States that the 
time for the application of an adequate remedy is not wholly past. 
Grave injury has been done to our country, which can not be repaired 
in a year, nor a decade, nor wholly effaced in a century ; but the fact 
gained by our present inventory, above all other facts in importance, 
is that if we act at once we still have forest enough left to produce, 
under right management, at least what timber we need. 

The cause of practical forestry is a just cause. On the one side 
are established habits of wastefulness and of misuse; on the other 
side is the doctrine of common sense, of business sagacity, of public 
duty. Because I believe in the American people, I believe that they 
will follow the right course and turn away from the wrong in this, 
as in all other crucial questions, upon which depends the permanent 
welfare of our country. [Applause.] 

O 



